Concussions are a common issue in the world of sports today. They affect every sport alike but are more common in particular ones. Concussions are the most common in contact sports such as football and hockey. Most athletes will experience at least one concussion at some point in their life. According to a survey by Robert Pearl, about 60% of college soccer players have reported concussion symptoms. He also surveyed college football players, where only 34% have reported experiencing symptoms of concussions, but another 20% have reported experiencing it multiple times. (Pearl). The Center for Disease Control estimates that up to as many as 3.8 million sports related traumatic brain injuries occur every year in the United States. Due to this large number, people are pulling their kids from sports and not allowing them to play so they are not putting them at risk of this head trauma. There are now more educational programs available to the parents, coaches, and school administrators so that they know how they should handle the situation when they think a child may be suffering from a concussion. Concussions are a problem that not many people know too much about, it is thought about as a minor head injury by many, but the fail to realize the problems go much deeper. Unless athletic leagues can do a better job of developing improvements to further the safety of players and protection that they have against these injuries, the sports themselves are not worth the risk.

A concussion is when a sudden jolt literally causes your brain to move around in your head. Since it is made of soft tissue and only cushioned by spinal fluid, it is not that hard for it to move. This can cause bruising, damage to the blood vessels, or injury to the nerves(Camarillo). If this happens to your brain, it would no longer function normally. Things resulting from a concussion can be those such as disturbed vision, loss of equilibrium, or being knocked unconscious. However, concussions can also have long term effects. Repeated mild TBI has been associated with permanent diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other brain disorders that become more prevalent with age. A more saddening story that has just surfaced from a former legend is that he had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. ALS is a progressive degeneration of the motor neurons of the central nervous system which leads to the wasting of muscles and paralysis. It is not a known fact that this diagnosis is due to the repetitive head trauma, but a protein that gets released during stress, concussions, and neurological damage called TDP-43, is a cause for ALS and other neurodegenerative disease(Fisher).

 Another effect that concussions can have on your body long term is the development of Chronic traumatic encephalopathy(CTE). CTE is a progressive degenerative disease found in people who have had a severe blow or repeated blows to the head. This is commonly found in retired football players as the symptoms don’t usually start until 8-10 years after experiencing repetitive mild traumatic brain injury. Due to the fact that CTE can only be diagnosed by studying brain tissue, it can’t be diagnosed until after death. CTE is a big deal with former athletes because it completely changes their lives. It can result in memory loss, confusion, impaired judgement, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, suicidality, parkinsonism, and eventually progressive dementia. Too many former professional athletes have suffered from CTE and too many committed suicides. 

One recent, saddening story of the trauma that CTE can cause, is the story of former All-Pro Linebacker Junior Seau. Junior Seau had put together a great career in the NFL, whether it was making the Pro Bowl, All Pro team, winning NFL Defensive Player of the Year, or NFL Man of the Year, he did it all. Seau played 19 seasons in the NFL but was never reported to have a concussion. Over the last few years of his life, Junior Seau’s family was noticing stuff changing with him. His wife, who was his High school sweetheart, knew Seau like no other. She had described noticing recent changes in Junior Seau’s behavior including mood swings, depression, forgetfulness, insomnia and detachment. His son Tyler described Seau losing his temper over small things he never used to worry about and not only taking it out on him, but everybody else there. Junior Seau committed suicide May 2, 2012, 3 years after his retirement from the NFL. After his brain had been donated to the National Institutes of Health in Washington for testing, they released a statement saying that his brain showed definitive signs of CTE. 

This is why former professional athletes that have played these sports are filing lawsuits against both the NFL and NHL for not being truthful about the effects that this steady contact could have on their body. The damage that has been done to the player’s body is so severe that the NFL has agreed to a $765M settlement for the players involved in the concussion related lawsuit(NFL). However, these are not the only effect that concussions have on a body. 

There are also the cognitive issues that come along with concussions. Semyon Slobounov writes about two cheerleaders in his book, one of which is a 12-year-old who has had two concussions, and the other is a 16-year-old cheerleader who has had five concussions. These two girls have suffered greatly from the effects of their concussions. The 16-year-old girl dropped from an A student in class to a C student that requires extra help in class. The 12-year-old former cheerleader had to back to the first-grade level in school(Slobounov). In a research conducted by Hector Arciniega, they looked at two groups of people to determine if concussions actually affected a person’s thinking skills for several weeks after, as the assumption worked. They did this by looking at two groups of people, one group consisted of 43 people aged 18-80, the other was a group of 20 college students with the average age of 21. Both of these groups contained people who had a concussion and some who had never experienced one. The study proved the fact that those who had suffered a concussion in their lives did worse on their tests than those who did not (Miller).

This is why we must do all we can in sports to further prevent concussions. The only way to flat out prevent concussions would be to “slow the brain down” while it is inside the skull and someone experiences a blow to the head(Camarillo). Since we cannot “slow down the brain” while it is inside the skull, then it does not matter what is around the outside of your head because your brain will still react the same while inside of that helmet(Camarillo). 

In order to prevent concussions in sports, leagues have made multiple rule changes in order to limit the amount of contact that a player is taking to the head. Not only the big open field hits but the small hits that nobody pays attention to. Some of the changes that leagues have already made to the rules include things such as not being able to hit a receiver in the head or neck area when making a catch and not being able to lead with the crown of your helmet when running the ball(Bradley). They also implemented a system where spotters in the press box will be able to stop the game if they think a player may have been concussed, that player will then be removed from the game for testing. However, this system alone does not always work.

 Just because new rules have been put into place, does not mean that they are always followed. A situation where the rules were not followed was in 2015. St. Louis Rams quarterback Case Keenum was wrapped up and pulled down from behind, as he was going to the ground his momentum carried the back of his head forcibly into the ground. Teammates tried to help him to his feet, but Keenum was limp as he tried to sit up and fell back over. Keenum was clearly woozy after violently hitting his head on the ground but somehow, he was able to convince the team trainer that he was able to stay in the game. Keenum fumbled a couple plays later and lost the game, but this is not the problem. The issue is that the team did not give him a concussion test until after the game. Not testing him is what allowed him to remain in the game at kept him at risk of furthering the severity of his injury. 

In scenarios such as Case Keenum’s where the training staff clearly could tell something was wrong with a player, but allowed him to remain in the game should be punishable. Doing something such as leaving that player in the game puts him at risk for serious health issues and puts the league in a bad position considering player safety. The training staff allowed Case Keenum to remain in that game just after speaking to him. In order to be an NFL quarterback, you have to be very competitive, and a competitive person would do anything possible to remain in the game, but the training staff should have known this and removed him. If Keenum were to get injured further, it could have ruined the image of the NFL, and got them in serious trouble. For those reasons are why a situation like this should be punishable either by fine or suspension.

Some have even gone as far as to say if they could go back, knowing what they know now, they would not even play football themselves. Harry Carson is a Hall of Fame linebacker who suffers from the residual effects of concussions still, 20 years later, after being diagnosed with post-concussion syndrome only two years after his retirement. Carson said “When I played, nobody really knew the residual effects of concussions and what it could lead to – dementia, Alzheimer’s and ALS – so we were, in my era, in my generation, basically flying in the dark.” This is a true statement from Carson as they did not know the effects of the head trauma. Carson followed that statement up with an even stronger one shocking most fans. “From a physical risk standpoint, I knew that you could get hurt physically and I assumed that risk, but from a neurological risk standpoint, I didn’t know. So, knowing what I know now, I would never have played football.” (Parise) A former Super Bowl champion and Hall of Famer, reaching the games two most decorated honors, put this into perspective for all fans. The game is not worth playing no matter what you achieve if it is going to change your life with mental illness and suffering. 

These degenerative diseases are the reasons that the NFL and concussions are receiving so much attention. People feel participants in football are greatly at risk to be the ones that suffer a life changing effect that concussions can result in. There have been things such as rule changes that have supposedly helped in making the concussion numbers go down, but more needs to be done. The helmet players wear has been altered many times since the beginning of the game, but since it was only designed to protect from skull fractures and not concussions, it can only do so much to help protect from concussions. Recently, UCLA professor Vijay Gupta has used his expertise in science to help protect the brain. He marveled at the body, saying that the cerebral-spinal fluid in the skull is “the best shock-absorbing system you could ever design.” But it’s not there to withstand the collision with a 250-pound football player. Gupta began creating a polymer that can be placed in helmets in order to diminish the force of helmet to helmet hits(Fricano). With Gupta and other scientists discovering that above 90 Gs of force that you have almost a 90 percent chance of a concussions, they set to put more shock absorbing material in the helmets. After adding a 2-millimeter-thick wafer of a firm, but flexible polymer created to reinforce the helmets foam, they were able to achieve up to a 25 percent reduction in the force that a person feels(Fricano). This also translated to a similar reduction in the probability of getting a concussion. This is the kind of technology that the NFL needs to place in their helmets. It would also be beneficial to the NFL to continue researching the ways they can reduce the force felt and reduce the concussions that result rather than trying to hide the truth of concussions and denying that they are a problem in the game.

These all are reasons why athletic leagues from youth to professional need to be doing more in order to protect their athletes. Concussions start at a young age but the effects are no different. Young players need to be taken care of just as much, if not more than professional players. The concussions in all sports are a problem, with a higher percentage of soccer players reporting concussion symptoms than football players show that even a “non-contact” sport puts their players at risk. 

 The risks of playing sports are becoming greater known and they are suffering because of it. As more and more parents learn about the risks of their children playing sports, they are keeping their kids out which reduces the amount of young talent in that sport. Even former players and legends are hopping on the bandwagon. Hall of Famers such as Terry Bradshaw and Troy Aikman along with future Hall of Famers such as Drew Brees and Brett Favre all said that they would not let their sons play football. In an interview Aikman said “I think that we’re at a real corssroads, as it relates to the grassroots of our sports, because if I had a 10-year-old boy, I don’t know that I’d be real inclined to encourage him to go play football, in light of what we are learning from head injury.”(Blodget) The fact that players of that caliber said they would not let their kids play, shows the risk of the sport. These are inspirational figures and if they are making a movement for not putting their children at risk, we could see that gain traction and see more parents do the same. The NFL is a model for everybody else, so if they give these problems the serious attention that they deserve, everybody else will follow.

Some players still do not understand the full effects that a concussion has on their body and their future. They recklessly play this game, not knowing that they are potentially changing their lives with every hit. The NFL does a poor job of protecting and informing them about these risks. They need to develop better equipment and technology for helmets to protect all that they can, such as Gupta’s polymer. They also need to make more rule changes and safety procedures in the game to limit the head to head contact and make concussion testing more common with players dealing with head injuries.
